David McDonald Goes From Iowa Farm Boy To Global Business Executive

David McDonald is a business executive who grew up on an Iowa farm. He graduated from Iowa State University in 1987 with a bachelor’s degree in animal science. After his graduation, he soon found a job at OSI Group. He was hired as a project manager and steadily rose in this company to positions of higher authority. He has been the president and chief operating officer at this company for the past several years. The company he works for his global in scope. It was started in 1909 by an immigrant from Germany. When it really took off was when a new restaurant franchise, McDonald’s, chose it to provide their restaurants with fresh beef patties.

They are now one of McDonald’s main global suppliers of processed food and have partnered with several other restaurant chains as well. Over the 30 years David McDonald has been with this company he has played a big role in this global expansion. David McDonald oversees 65 food processing facilities located in 17 countries. He says that OSI Group gives the local managers quite a bit of latitude in regards to making business decisions. He says that the best ideas are generated locally because they are so close to their markets. It takes a lot of people to operate a global supply chain so David McDonald relies on them to do their jobs while he takes a more expansive view of operating the company.

When OSI Group decides to expand in market through acquiring a company it is usually David McDonald who handles the negotiations. He was critical in a few of their recent deals such as acquiring two European food processing firms, Flagship Europe (renamed Creative Foods Europe) and Baho Foods. He also works with governmental agencies, suppliers, and OSI Group’s customers in order to keep everything running smoothly. He recently did a public speech at Swine Days. This event was held on June 28th at Iowa State University. This annual event brings in people from across Iowa where they discuss the latest important issues facing American pork producers. They discuss best practices in the industry, current market conditions, and the latest scientific research.